nd not to suffer an appeal to any court beyond ourselves. We know,
and we view it with consternation, that all Antiquity runs counter to
our interpretation; and therefore, alas, the Church was corrupt from
_very_ early times indeed. But mind, we hold all this in a truly
Catholic spirit, not in bigotry. We allow in others the right of private
judgment, and confess that we, as others, are fallible men. We confess
facts are against us; we do but claim the liberty of theorizing in spite
of them. Far be it from us to say that we are certainly right; we only
say that the whole early Church was certainly wrong. We do not impose
our belief on any one; we only say that those who take the contrary
side are Papists, firebrands, persecutors, madmen, zealots, bigots, and
an insult to the nineteenth century."

To such an argument, I am aware, it avails little to oppose historical
evidence, of whatever kind. It sets out by protesting against all
evidence, however early and consistent, as the testimony of fallible
men; yet at least, the imagination is affected by an array of facts; and
I am not unwilling to appeal to the imagination of those who refuse to
let me address their reason. With this view I have been inquiring into
certain early works, which, or the authors of which, were held in
suspicion, or even condemned by the ruling authorities of the day, to
see if any vestige of an hypothetical Protestantism could be discovered
in them; and, since they make no sign, I will now interrogate a very
different class of witnesses. The consent of Fathers is one kind of
testimony to Apostolical Truth; the protest of heretics is another; now
I will come, thirdly, to received usage. To give an instance of the last
mentioned argument, I shall appeal to the Apostolical Canons, though a
reference to them will involve me in an inquiry, interesting indeed to
the student, but somewhat dry to the general reader.

3.

These Canons, well known to Antiquity, were at one time supposed to be,
strictly speaking, Apostolical, and published before A.D. 50. On the
other hand, it has been contended that they are later than A.D. 450, and
the work of some heretics. Our own divines take a middle course,
considering them as published before A.D. 325, having been digested by
Catholic authorities in the course of the two preceding centuries, or at
the end of the second, and received and used in most parts of
Christendom. This judgment has since been acquiesced in